Showtime Lobodzinski Crowned First Men’s Towerrunning World Champion

The first Towerrunning World Championships took place last weekend in Doha, Qatar. In the most competitive stair running field ever assembled, athletes took on three climbs, over two days of racing, to determine who would be crowned World Champion.

The Torch in Doha, venue for the World Championships

Action began on Friday morning with an open race up the building’s 1,304 to determine the 30 competitors that would advance to the second round later in the day, and Saturday’s final. This race threw up no surprises and the list of finalists contained all the elite runners. In the men’s section it was reigning Towerrunning champion Piotr “Showtime” Lobodzinski who took an early lead, with Australians Mark “The Canberra Assassin” Bourne and “Optimus Climb” Darren Wilson close behind him. Also in the mix were “Fearless” Frank Carreño, “The Zilina Avalanche” Tomas Celko and Matjaz “The Slovenian Multi-Tool” Miklosa. To give you some perspective on how strong a field it was, British athlete “The Manchester Myth” Andi Jones (albeit not a stair climb specialist) who has a sub-30min PB for 10k and a 2:15 marathon PB was no way near being in contention for the top spots. Neither were Olympian Will “The Dark” Clarke and his colleague Romain “Centurian” Guillaume, pro-triathletes from the Uplace-BMC team. The caliber of athletes in this race was astounding. These guys are fast!!

This gentleman was so fast he out ran his own shoes as he powered away from the start line!

The first race of the day (51 floors) was followed by a shorter race (30 floors) in the afternoon to determine the starting order for Saturday’s final. The shorter course seemed to favour the European athletes who narrowed the gap slightly and closed in on the top three. “Showtime” made no mistake about assuring pole position for the final and took another win. He was followed by Carreno, Celko, Miklosa and Macecek. Positions were now set for the final, which would begin in an F1 style grid format. Lobodzinski was pole, Carreño 2nd, Bourne 3rd, Celko 4th, Miklosa 5th and, having finished 3rd in the first round, “Optimus Climb” 6th.

The final began with a 150m run into the stairwell, with positions throughout the field changing drastically before the athletes even hit the stairs. As expected Lobodzinski maintained his position at the front the whole way up and reached the top to be crowned the very first Towerrunning World Champion, while Bourne managed to leapfrog Carreño. and regain second place. The most impressive turnaround of the day was the work put in by “Optimus Climb” who went from being 6th on the grid, behind the likes of Celko and Miklosa, to finishing in third. Brilliant effort from the Adelaide man.

The top three celebrating after the race. Does “Optimus Climb” have a licence for those guns!??!

With the first fully televised stair race happening the weekend before at the Eiffel Tower in Paris and now the fully stacked World Championships in Doha successfully completed, our sport is really coming into its own. It is clearly gaining in popularity and the top athletes are proving they are as fit and dedicated as those from any sporting discipline you care to mention. In the likes of Bourne, Wilson and Lobodzinski we have some fine ambassadors for stair climbing and the future looks very bright. Congratulations to all who took part in Doha.